Don’t Build a Paywall, Create a Velvet Rope Instead

Posted: 3/27/2012  |  By: Mathew Ingram | GigaOM.com

As the newspaper industry continues to flounder, paywalls and other subscription models are becoming more common, with everyone trying to imitate the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Is there any other other option to putting up a turnstile around the news? We’ve argued before that there are a number of options, and Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger described them fairly succinctly during the paper’s recent “open weekend” event: in a nutshell, readers can contribute by providing their time, their information or their money.